RevCyn

Tomorrow we vote on what Study/Action issue to adopt for 2012-2016, and I haven't made up my mind yet which one I'm voting for.  I talked with a proponent of "CSAI 1 - Climate Action and Adaptation Plans: Why Greenhouse Gases and their Effects Matter to Us" today, who points out that if we don't save the earth, none of these other issues will matter.  Well, yeah.  That's a point.  And he also points out that some of the other issues are related to this one, particularly "CSAI 2 - Families, Population, and the Environment."  I've also seen that a lot of people I know are walking around wearing anti-slavery buttons and that there seems to be a lot of support for "CSAI 5 - Ending Slavery."  The advocate for CSAI 1 asked me, "Well, what is your congregation engaged in?"  We're engaged in all these issues to some extent.  Our JXN Community Forum series has often engaged in environmental issues.  Our members are individually in...

Several people asked me if I would post my sermon from this past Sunday online.  I post it with some reluctance, because I think it won't hold up on paper as well.  It's a performance piece -- part of what made it so well received, I believe, came from the surprise of it, and the novelty of having the entire sermon in verse.  Once you have a chance to think about the fact that rhymed "lightbulbs" with "entitled" -- a rhyme so slanted it falls over -- you might think twice about my poetic ability.  And the meter is certainly a bit forced in multiple locations.  Actually, it's just completely uneven throughout.  But it was great fun to do, and something I've been wanting to try for a long time.  It's hard work to write an entire sermon in verse, because it is such a long piece when written that way.  I found that I had to write much more than I usually write in prose, because the rhyme and meter keep me reading it at a pretty good clip.  What ...

For years, I have been carrying bottled water into the pulpit. I drink and like tap water at home, but I don't like the taste of the church's well water, so I've been porting my own water in, yes, those horrible plastic bottles that fill up our landfills. Now seems like the time to stop. So this summer I've been in search of the perfect bottle to take to church every week (and every other day I'm there, as well). I started by mentioning this to my husband. He had previously purchased some Rubbermaid ones we've been using at home: These won't work for toting water to church, because (as, yes, I have found) the cap isn't very secure and will leak water all over your bag and onto your sermon. So when I mentioned to my husband that I was looking for one that would work for taking to church, unbeknownst to me, he went and purchased a bottle from "ecousable." This has the advantage of having the round top where I could clip it to the outside of my ba...